When you use your imagination anything can happen.

Other nights ... I visualize to the point that I know exactly what I want to do: dive, glide, stroke, flip, reach the wall, hit the split time to the hundredth, then swim back again for as many times as I need to finish the race.

Once I retire, I'm retiring. I'm done.

I learned how fast you can go from being an international hero to being a reference in a joke on a late night talk show.

This is my 20th year in the sport. I've known swimming and that's it. I don't want to swim past age 30; if I continue after this Olympics, and come back in 2016, I'll be 31. I'm looking forward to being able to see the other side of the fence.

I live a pretty conservative life, so I probably really haven't done anything crazy.

I feel most at home in the water. I disappear. That's where I belong.